Category Archives: Tiny House News

Build your Tiny House out of Sing Core and join us on our next Tiny House TV Show!

Maybe it’s your turn to be the new tiny house TV sensation. If you want to join us on our next Tiny House TV show, all you have to do is to purchase your Sing Tiny House Kit in the month on August and let us know you want to be on the TV show.

You can be the next star of tiny house TV show with Sing Core.

We’re looking to show the world how fast and easy it can be to build a tiny house using Sing Core, and demonstrate how downsizing from the unsustainable excess of full sized homes is an effective and earth-friendly approach to living your best life.

If you’re really interested in living a more responsible lifestyle in your Sing tiny house and you would like to be featured on our next upcoming TV show, let us know.

We’d like to help you share and tell your tiny house story to the world for a better tomorrow.

Contact us and let us know you would like to be on the next Tiny House TV Show.

The Sky’s the Limit

If you’re ready to pull the trigger, we’ll help to make sure your Tiny House adventure is a hit, and we will make it as quick, easy and painless on you as possible. You want this to be a great TV show, and so do you.

We want to empower you to share your tiny house story with the world via our television show.

The world is primed, as we are receiving calls from around the world from people, just like you, who want to be the change we’d like to see in the world.

Celebrate your reduced carbon footprint with us on our next national and international TV show and let your GREEN flag fly.

Select from any of our Tiny House Kits (which are on sale for half-price, right now) or, make all your tiny house dreams come true with a custom tiny house build. Either way, your DIY tiny house can help to set the pace for a better world through living simply.

Tiny house living is not just about you; it’s about you taking and making a stand for a better future for all generations.

In the last few years proponents of the Tiny House Movement have reached out to their communities to provide safe tiny house solutions to address the growing homeless problem in communities across the nation.

Los Angeles is leading the pack led by Joe Buscaino who wants the tiny homes outlawed in his city as they set out to destroy tiny houses occupied by the homeless. Los Angeles city councilmember, Curren Price, refers to the shacks in his district as, “dog houses,” not fit for humans.

Local philanthropic tiny house builder, Elvis Summers assembled a team and set out frantically to pick up and relocate the temporary emergency micro housing to private land to prevent the city’s destruction of the tiny houses.

Summers started a Tiny House Project to address the homeless issue in the grater L.A. area and had placed some 37 homes, until Buscaino and the City of Los Angeles declared war on the tiny houses.

Sing Core has been a huge supporter of the tiny house movement to address the emergent shelter needs of people in housing crisis, including their Smallest House in the World $750 solution and donating 50% of their Sing Sandwich kits for building more significant tiny house solutions for qualified homeless organizations.

Mayor Eric Garcetti sees the tiny houses as more a nuisance, health hazard and not a solution at all.

The City of Los Angeles says they need $1.87 billion to address their homeless problem over the next 10 years, while in the meantime Summers is able to build tiny homes for about $1,200 in publicly raised donations via a crowd-funding campaign – at no cost to the city.

The city is in the process of passing a new ordinance making it easier to impound and destroy homeless people’s property, including tiny houses.

According to Summers, in January the city raised $12.4 Million in emergency funding for El Nino, here in March, they still haven’t done anything. “Where’s that money?” Summers says he could build over 11,000 tiny houses with that money.

All this while Austin, Texas as well as Charlotte, North Carolina and Portland, Oregon, have successfully established tiny house communities as a method of providing alternative housing for the homeless in their cities.

What are your thoughts?

For the ultimate in getaway cabins, the Dom’Up suspended treehouse offers a unique arboreal living experience to its residents, without harming the trees that it’s hanging from.

Trees and People takes a page from the “leave no trace” book with this octagonal tiny house platform, which uses a proprietary suspension and anchor system to suspend itself between two trees, distributing the weight of the structure without damaging the trees.

The 172 sq ft (16 sq m) Dom’Up shelter, which has a galvanized steel frame, wood floors, canvas walls, and a roof made from heavy duty waterproof tarp material, features a safety rail around the outer perimeter, as well as a “fall arrest net,” and is said to be “an economical and environmentally friendly alternative to treehouses.”

The Dom’Up can be installed in less than two days, without using a crane, and is said to be “half the price” of equivalent cabins.

Standard SIPS (structured insulated panels) are becoming more and more common amongst the Tiny House community due to their ease to build with and insulated qualities.

A new advancement in SIPS design is that of the RSIPS (reinforced structural insulated panels) invented by Peter sing of Sing Core.

These patented RSIP panels feature an insulated panel that is lighter in weight design, that takes up less real estate (thinner panels) yet achieve the highest compression strength.

Tiny house builders are actually building premium tiny houses using wall thicknesses as little as one-inch thick without any traditional 2×4 stick framing.In fact, the owner is so confident his life’s work has culminated into this best solution that he offers a $100 Reward for anyone who can provide him with a better solution in terms of lightweight, high strength, Eco-friendly building materials (all you have to do is provide him with a link. Follow this link for details).

SIPS vs. RSIPS Questions and Answers:

RSIPS seem to have too low R-value for cold temperatures in Northern USA and Canada

A 2000 sq. ft. home with R-21 insulation could cost $600 per month to heat in the winter.

While an uninsulated tiny house is only 120 sq. ft. and can easily be heated for as little as $1 per day with a small electric space heater.

Sing RSIPS can be customized to meet the R-value that you desire for your tiny house design.

In many cases tiny house builders use standard Tiny House RSIPS and modify them slightly for added insulation in the roof and floor by sandwiching an extra later of foam between 2 panels for extreme weather insulation in areas like Alaska as an alternative to using a custom panel.

Sing RSIPS are extremely popular throughout Alaska due to being able to quickly build an insulated structure quickly, and cost of transporting and handling materials is less expensive (especially in remote areas) not requiring standard 2×4 framing.

1.5 inch SIPS are too weak to build a tiny house out of.

This is true. SIPS have very little structure strength, unlike Sing’s RSIPS which were independently strength tested at the University of Washington and rated at 660+ PSI (which is stronger than steel pound for pound).

If you visit Sing’s site, you can see thin 1-inch thick wall panels supporting huge upper structure and roof beams with no additional support except the 1-inch panels themselves. Very impressive.

Another advantage of being able to use a panel that is so thin is that space is precious for any tiny house meaning more useable space inside the house for the homeowner.

What’s the point of the strips of wood inside the Sing RSIP?

Excellent question.

The strips of wood within Sing RSIPS is actually a huge component of the structure strength of these patented panels. These strips are constructed of vertical grain wood and form small boxes for the torsion box core resulting in superior strength. Then he packs the voids of the torsion box (that would traditionally be left hollow) wall-to-wall with solid foam strengthening his panels exponentially. (More information…)

Are Sing RSIPs strong enough to use as flooring?

See photo of 20 ft. x 5 ft. 1-inch thick panel with two people standing on it (any other type of SIPS would collapse even without people). The structure strength of Sing’s RSIPS are an excellent resource for flooring and is used in many high-end (multi-million dollar) homes.

You could combine two or more Sing RSIPS for added R-value or strength or have custom panels designed per your specifications.

Price of Sing RSIP seems very expensive compared to SIPS

SIPS were (and still are) a good design. Sing RSIPS are manufactured in the USA and when you factor in the embedded torsion box and foam composition, these patented panels are a value at ten times the price.

Many successful high-end tiny house builders come up with creative solutions to the challenges of building a non-2×4-framed traditional tiny house. You may want to consider using something as an alternative to doors and windows designed to be installed in 2×4 framing, or install framing where needed to accommodate your 2×4 hardware.

How do I install electrical and plumbing in such thin walls?

This is another area where it helps to think outside the box somewhat because you are using a material that is unconventional and has not been available before.

Pipe and conduit can be installed in the Sing wall and/or under the floor (a raised floor or double floor system creates the necessary space under the moveable floor).

Here are some of the most common solutions that we have seen:

1 Install pipe and conduit in the Sing wall by using a router to remove the Sing Core between Sing Panels

2 Cut a groove in the Sing wall by using router, install pipe and conduit and cover the opening with thin gauge metal, HPL or thin plywood .

3 Install pipe and conduit directly on top of your Sing wall, then enclose with a false wall (made of 2 in x 2 in studs and surface finish skin such as plywood , sheet rock, etc…).

There are so many more solutions that have been used and encourage the tiny house community to continue to come up with even more ideas, such as ready made wire management.

The Tiny House, built during a unique summer camp at the Key School, is about to hit the road.

The 210-square-foot home built on a trailer bed will be one of the main attractions at this weekend’s Maryland Home & Holiday Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. On Oct. 25, it will have a starring role in the SustainaFest Film Festival, from noon to 10 p.m., at the Indian Creek Upper School in Crownsville.

The Tiny House, topped with six solar panels, is designed to function “off the grid” for electrical energy and water.

Over a three-week period in July, student crews worked side-by-side with building professionals to construct the one-room, multipurpose structure. Due to heavy rainfall and other delays, the house was not completed by the end of the summer camp program.

Its interior was unfinished and unfurnished, until recently.

Queenstown resident Wade Boarman, 22, a 2009 graduate of Kent Island High School, volunteered with the kids on the summer project. His work led to a job as program coordinator for SustainaFest. The Annapolis-based nonprofit, along with several sponsors and the Key School, spearheaded the Tiny House project.

The finished features and furnishings inside the house include a table that can be raised or lowered to be a dining or coffee table, or a second desk. It was surrounded by five sleek, modern Italian-made cushioned metal stools. The stools can be separated from their cushions and stacked within each other like Russian nesting dolls, forming a single, cushioned cube.

Several items are hidden. Beneath the couch is the ceramic water filtration system, capturing, filtering and storing rainwater for use in the bathroom — which is designed like a sailboat’s wet head. A battery pack is tucked beside the office area. Underneath the floor of the desk, a double bed is ready to roll out.

A simple tug brings down a screen that doubles as a window shade and 97-inch TV projection screen.

In the kitchen, the microwave is also a convection oven. A cooktop is stowed away under the sink – ready to pull out and use.